4R Tomorrow FAQs

Q1: What is 4R Tomorrow?

4R Tomorrow is a program created by the Ohio Federation of Soil and Water Conservation Districts (OFSWCD), with the support of the Ohio Soybean Council, to educate and promote wise nutrient management to conserve water quality and soil health using the 4R nutrient stewardship principals and conservation practices.
Whether we are farmers, teachers, parents, children, construction workers, wastewater plant operators, business owners, or government officials—we all play a part in the water quality and natural resource protection, and we all have the ability and the responsibility to conserve and improve Ohio’s natural resources for generations to come.
Through the 4R Tomorrow program, we hope to bring together all stakeholders of natural resource issues—especially water quality— and illustrate how we all can be a part of the solution and contribute to a better tomorrow for Ohio’s citizens and natural resources.

Q2: What are the 4R Principles?

The 4R principles are a comprehensive, innovative and science-based nutrient management approach that enhances environmental protection and improves sustainability. The 4R concept is to implement the four “rights”: 1) right fertilizer source, at the 2) right rate, at the 3) right time, with the 4) right placement.
While the 4R philosophy was originally developed for the agricultural sector, OFSWCD’s 4R Tomorrow program expands these concepts even further—beyond the farm and into every Ohioan’s backyard, workplace, and community. The 4R Tomorrow program is about more than fertilizer or agriculture; it’s about improving the quality of life for all Ohioans, now and in the future. And you can help by applying the principles in your own back yard.

Q3. Why is the 4R Tomorrow Program important?

In Ohio, the water quality and phosphorus issue is at the front of everyone’s mind. Water quality affects the quality of life of Ohio citizens, ecosystems and wildlife. One big example of the water quality issues we are dealing with right now are the algae blooms in lakes across the state, which are caused by excess nutrients that have gotten into the water supply.
As part of the 4R Tomorrow Program, Ohio’s farmers are stepping up and working with county soil and water conservation districts (SWCDs) to reduce nutrient runoff from their fields. Yet, agriculture is not the only source for phosphorus in the affected lakes and ponds. Homeowners and businesses that use and apply fertilizer, chemicals, and other nutrients to their lawns or landscaping are contributors as well — along with other natural causes. If we truly want to protect and improve water quality in the state of Ohio, it’s going to take everyone working together and doing their part—no matter how small it might seem.
Q4. How can I protect the water quality of Ohio’s lakes, rivers, and streams?

You can play a role in protecting water quality and Ohio’s natural resources through what we call backyard conservation and 4R nutrient stewardship. Conservation goes hand-in-hand with good lawn care practices that protect and improve water quality. By using proper fertilizing and mowing practices, we all can enjoy healthy lawns and conserve our natural resources for future generations.
Examples of these practices include:

1) Always choose a fertilizer that is phosphorus-free, unless a soil test shows a need for this nutrient.
2) Feed your lawn in the spring and fall when the grass is actively growing.
3) Set your mower at the highest setting. Taller grass is stronger grass. It builds deeper roots that enables

the plant to find water and nutrients and better withstand periods of heat and drought.
4)  Use a mulching mower, so that grass clippings and leaves can be returned to the soil where they will break down and add natural nutrients and organic matter to the soil.
5)  Sweep leaves, grass clippings, and fertilizer that land on driveways and sidewalks back onto the grass to help keep nutrients out of waterways.

For more information on backyard conservation and how you can protect Ohio’s natural resources by implementing conservation practices in your own backyard, go to www.4RTomorrow.org or contact our office.
Q5. Does the grass and landscaping in my backyard and community really have that big of impact on Ohio’s natural resources?

In a word, yes! The millions of grass plants in your lawn help clean the air, trap dirt, and remove carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. The grass roots and soil microbes act as a natural water filter to capture and break down pollutants. Not to mention that in urban areas, grass and plant life helps absorb heat and lower the air temperature that is intensified by hard metal, concrete and glass surfaces.
Grass, trees, and plants in your lawn and community landscaping also keeps the soil in place, preventing erosion and absorbing water. Healthy grass can absorb most of the runoff from roofs, patios, driveways, sidewalks, and streets that would otherwise go directly into storm sewers, lakes, and streams. “There are millions of yards across the state of Ohio. Each one makes a difference.”

Q6. What is the “4R Tomorrow Team”?

The 4R Tomorrow Team is an opportunity for you to be a proactive part of the solution. As a member of the 4R Tomorrow Team, you will pledge (“I Resolve”) to reduce the amount of phosphorus you apply to your yard, as well as implement 4R nutrient management and backyard conservation practices to 1) prevent nutrients from washing into Ohio’s waterways, 2) manage your water resources, and 3) improve the overall health of your lawn. As an official 4R Tomorrow Team member, you will receive a 4R Tomorrow Team membership card, tips and educational information about 4R nutrient management and backyard conservation, and updates on the Team’s progress. A 4R Tomorrow Membership sign may be added too!

Q7. How will I benefit from participating in the pledge -- “I Resolve” Campaign?

By participating in the “I Resolve” campaign and reducing the amount of fertilizer and nutrients that can end up in Ohio’s lakes, streams and rivers, you will not only end up with a healthier lawn, but you will also be contributing to a better quality of life for all Ohioans for generations to come.

Q8. How can I participate?

Contact your local SWCD or go to www.4RTomorrow.org to sign up for the program. Then make your pledge to reduce your phosphorus. Why not start today! The local SWCD delivers program assistance in an effort to develop locally driven solutions to natural resource concerns, especially in areas of soil erosion prevention and water management.

Q9. Who can I contact for more information on how to implement the 4R nutrient management principles in my backyard or business?

Our local SWCD has a wealth of information and resources to share with you. In addition, you can find more about the 4R Tomorrow Program, the 4R nutrient management principles, backyard conservation practices, and additional resources at http://www.4rtomorrow.org/.

Why plant a cover crop?

When nature is left unattended, it knows what it is doing.  The ground is absolutely covered with plants.  Those plants cover, protect and hold the soil in place keeping it from the forces of erosion.  Animals feed off of those plants and deposit their droppings on the soil.  When the plants die, they feed the life in the soil.  Cover cropping, also know as green manure cropping, follows the same principle. Some of the primary benefits from cover crops include:

1. Soil quality improvements--Soil tilth is improved whenever a plant establishes roots and grows into compacted areas. Water infiltration is improved as well. When a field lays fallow for a period of time, the surface tends to seal and water will run off. Cover crops protect the soil surface and reduce sealing. Also, beneficial organisms in the soil, such as earthworms, thrive when fresh plant material is decomposing. Organic matter levels tend to improve with the addition of cover crops.
2. Erosion control--Cover crops reduce wind and water erosion on all types of soils. By having the soil held in place by cover crops during the fall, winter, and early spring, loss of soil from erosion is greatly reduced.
3. Fertility improvements--Legumes can add substantial amounts of available nitrogen to the soil. Non-legumes can be used to take up excess nitrogen from previous crops and recycle the nitrogen as well as available phosphorus and potassium to the following crop. This is very important after manure application, because cover crops can reduce leaching of nutrients.
4. Suppress weeds--A dense stand of winter rye or other cover crop can suppress weeds by soil shading. Allelochemicals from cover crops suppress the growth of other plants.
5. Insect control--Beneficial insects, such as lady beetles or ground beetles, may be encouraged by planting cover crops.

Promoting Conservation Every Day

Conservation practices in the United States have helped us achieve an historic standard of living. We enjoy a wide variety of fresh, healthy food. Drinking water supplies are clean and mainly free from disease. Lakes, rivers, and streams are much cleaner than 30 years ago. Air quality has greatly improved in the last fifty years.  Conservation of natural resources has helped create an amazing way of life for Americans.

We still face many challenges today, but the lessons of the past show us that people working together can solve almost any problem. 

Every person can help conserve natural resources in their daily life. Start by learning about air, water, soil, plant, and wildlife resources around you. Conserve energy, recycle, don’t litter or dump household chemicals.  The district can help you in this learning process.   We offer a variety of workshops and programs that are both interesting and educational.  So far this year, we've offered a workshop on successful seedings, a maple syrup clinic, wildflower walk, a nature hike on the Great Guernsey  Trail, 2 hydroponics workshops, and a pond clinic.   Later this year, a coyote clinic, a conservation day camp, a teacher's workshop, a timber harvest tour and a fall color walk are planned, along with ongoing educational programs with local schools. 

Please plan to join us for these events, and learn how you can do your part to use our natural resources wisely.

Protecting our Living Soil

While most of us seldom think about our relationship with the soil, we all depend on soil for our daily survival. In generation after generation, it is important to bring attention back to the central theme – the living soil sustains all life on earth. Without the soil, nothing lives. Our conservation district works to protect healthy soils that in turn support a healthy environment, and healthy environments support healthy life.


Modern farmers and ranchers who practice soil conservation are doing their part to keep the living soil alive. Lessons from the past, such as the catastrophic “Dust Bowl” of the 1930s, have shown what can happen when the topsoil is not protected from wind and water erosion. Today, private land managers employ a host of conservation practices, such as minimum tillage, to protect the topsoil that feeds the nation.

Soil health becomes more important when you learn that millions of beneficial organisms are going through their daily routine of eating, breathing, living, and dying in the soil. One cup of fertile soil may contain as many bacteria as there are people on Earth. In one acre—an area about the size of a football field—there may be a ton or more of microscopic bacteria. That’s equal to the weight of two full-grown cows!

We eat the food, drink the water, breath the air, and enjoy the views, but only a few of us walk the fields and forests on a regular basis and understand what those lands need from us in order to sustain the living soil. However, the district can suggest three things each of us can do in our own backyards to be better stewards of our soil resources:
• Protect the soil from wind or water erosion by keeping healthy plants growing on the surface.

• Restore and maintain organic matter in the soil, such as grass clippings or tree leaves (compost).

• Protect soil life by using the least amounts and least toxic materials to control pest problems.

Manage Cropland for Fish and Wildlife

Everything that’s done on the land affects wildlife, either positively or negatively. That’s true for cropland, where habitat quality is usually considered secondary to profitable cropping systems.

Profitable cropping systems can support wildlife, and produce cleaner water and more productive soil, too. Consider making a conservation plan that includes wildlife habitat in each decision

being made.

Follow four key thoughts:

Control soil erosion. While soil conservation is basic to all farming systems, if you think about it, covering the soil is as basic for wildlife habitat as it is to soil protection. To have habitat, wildlife must have food and cover, and that’s what basic soil conservation practices offer.

Grassed waterways, grassed field borders, grass or riparian filter strips, terraces, crop rotations, field and farmstead windbreaks-- all these basic practices offer cover and some food to wildlife.

In offering soil protection, they also contribute to better water quality.

Use conservation tillage. Leaving plant residues on the soil surface after harvest, and through the next year’s crop season as well, protects the soil and offers cover in the winter for many birds and small mammals.

No-till farming, where the soil is disturbed little for planting or through the crop season, helps nesting birds. An Iowa study shows 9 times the amount of bird nests in a no-till field compared to plowed fields. Narrow row soybeans are likewise helpful to quail because there is no disturbance during nesting season.

Time operations for wildlife. Delaying any mowing of waterways, field borders, roadsides, or hayfields until after nesting season is paramount to grassland bird survival. There are also small but important operations changes that can be made, such as mowing a field from the center to the edge, to allow wildlife to escape from the mower into adjoining fields. And you can add a flush bar to your mower to

get birds out of the way of the blade.

Maximize odd areas. Make full use of non-farmed areas alongside crop fields by establishing habitat used by the wildlife you want to see on your farm.

Conservation Daycamp Application

Help Pollinators Help You!

For most Americans, pollen means allergies and bees mean stings-- but to farmers, when one out of every three bites of food people take is made possible by a pollinator, bees and pollen mean much more. Pollinators play a tremendous economic role. The problem is, too many people see the pollination process as a free service from nature; most people don’t know the unprecedented threats facing wild and managed pollinators worldwide.

Managed honey bee colonies have shrunk by 25 percent since 1990, and there are fewer bee hives now in the United States than at any time in the past 50 years. For more than a decade, biologists have documented declines in populations of migratory pollinators including butterflies, bats and birds. Habitat loss and excessive exposure to agrichemicals, as well as spread of diseases, parasitic mites, invasion of Africanized honey bees, and elimination of government subsidies for beekeepers are most often mentioned for what’s been called an impending pollination crisis.

Pollinators are particularly important to fruit, vegetable and nut growers, with crops valued in the billions. California producers rent half a million bee hives a year for almond trees alone.

On your land, there are several things you can do to help pollinators. Don’t disturb wild areas. Bumblebees nest in grass in old mouse nests, for instance, and other bees nest in dead wood. Plant pollinator friendly crops. Clovers, alfalfa, trefoils and other legumes enrich and protect the soil and are pollinator favorites. Use conservation buffers.

Let plants bloom. Try to time mowing, tilling or grazing management decisions so that plants have the opportunity to bloom. Time pesticide application. Your pesticide label lists bee toxicity and residual time. Pollinator-friendly plants include many native wildflowers. An excellent place for them is in streamside buffers next to crop fields.

Wildlife

Ways

Did you

know....

A bee's wings vibrate about

435 times a second. More than

75 percent of the crop plants

that feed the world, and many

plant-derived medicines in our

pharmacies rely on pollination

by insects or other animals for

healthy fruit development.

Conservation Day Camp Planned

Guernsey Soil and Water Conservation District has been offering a day camp for area youth for more than 20 years! This year at the Conservation Camp, area youth will “Fuel Your Imagination”, with fun and educational activities.

The two day camp is scheduled for July 25 & 26th from 9:00a.m. to 2:00p.m., and it is open to all youth, ages 8-11. It will be held at Moore Memorial Woods, a land lab owned by the district, which is located 3 miles east of Old Washington.
Camp fee is still only $5.00 for both days. For this fee, the camper will receive a lunch both days, a binder full of information, and will receive their own camp T-shirt. There will be 2 locations (one in Cambridge and one in Byesville) for bus pick-up and drop-off.

On the first day, students will learn about how geology helped form the oil, gas, and coal deposits far below the surface of Guernsey county. They will receive a sample of rocks and minerals found in the area. A lifesized Monopoly game will teach them about the energy that these fuel sources provide. They will learn about some of the 6000 products that are made from coal and petroleum that we use in our daily lives. And they will work on building a model to understand how land is reclaimed after coal mining.

On the second day, the coal miners from the Byesville Train will come and tell the kids the story of what it was like to mine coal many years ago. Guernsey Muskingum Electric will do a demonstration on electrical safety. And the kids will go hiking, and other fun activities.

For a registration form or if you have questions, please call the district!

Forest Edge Helps Wildlife - Gradually

Edge-- the transition zone between two different types of vegetation-- can be key to good wildlife habitat on a farm. How good it can be depends on the diversity and quality of the plants that offer food and cover. Just as importantly, those plants need to create a gradual transition from the tall forest trees to the relatively short crop or grass field next to it.

Most transitions are abrupt--  but the direct change from low ground cover in a crop field to tall trees doesn’t help wildlife. What many species like is a wider, more gradual border area. A minimum of 30 feet, but preferably wider zone of grasses, weeds, shrubs, vines and small trees offer the berries, seeds, browse, and insects helpful ton wildlife. Northern bobwhite quail is among the more popular species that relies heavily on edge habitat.

Creating a forest edge.
The transition edge can be converted from no transition by planting shrubs or small trees. Another option is to encourage  the area to revert naturally to native plants. Stop grazing, mowing or cropping the area and the natural process will probably work in short order. A light disking will help weeds and other native species to come along more quickly.
If the trees in the forest are close to one another, the edge can be improved by thinning the tree stand. Consider a commercial timber sale, or cutting trees for firewood. Thinning the stand near the edge allows sunlight to reach the forest understory. The sunlight then promotes more growth of plants that offer food
and cover for wildlife.

Creating forest openings.
An option or addition to creating edge on the outside of large tracts of forests is to create small openings within the forest. Ungrazed clearings in a forest diversify the habitat, and offer woodland birds such as wild turkeys the annual weeds, grasses and seedlings that poults need. With selective thinning, good fruit and nut producing trees, den trees, and snags can be left for more food and cover for wildlife.

It’s a good idea to have five to ten acres of small clearings for every 100 acres of forest, with clearings ranging from one to three acres.

Bats help Battle Crop Pests

Bats get a bad rap. These crop and farm-friendly creatures consume enormous amounts of insects daily.
They eat the beetles, moths, and leafhoppers that cost landowners billions of dollars in damages each year.
Agricultural ally vs. insects.
The benefits of bats to farmers goes on and on. A few examples:
1) Just 150 big brown bats can eat enough cucumber beetles each summer to protect farmers from 33
million of the rootworm larvae. This pest costs American farmers an estimated billion dollars a year.

2) Bats from just three caves near San Antonio, Texas, eat about a million pounds nightly of insects, including many costly pests.

3) A Georgia pecan grower is no longer losing 30% of his crop to hickory shuckworms. He installed bat
houses-- one of them hosts a colony of 2,000 bats.

4) A little brown bat can eat 1200 insects in an hour.

Fact vs. myth on bats
Misconceptions abound on bats. For instance, they are not blind, they do not become entangled in human hair and they seldom transmit disease to other animals or humans.
Some bats can maneuver like helicopters to pluck insects from foliage, while others fly 10,000 feet high and dive like jets.

How can you help?
Like most animals, bats suffer from habitat loss. Their primary cause of decline is destruction of natural roosts by humans.
Landowners can help by building and putting up bat houses on their property, or working with highway departments to create roosts under bridges.  Mines that are closed can continue to provide habitat and openings for bats.
The district has bat boxes for sale, and can also provide plans for those who would like to built their own.

POND CLINIC PLANNED

Our pond clinic is coming up SOON!   Thursday, June 14th from 6-8PM.  Its held at the Senecaville Fish Hatchery this year, and begins with a tour of the hatchery.  Then Mike Greenlee, aquatic biologist for ODNR will talk about fish and fish stocking.  Joe Lehman of our office will cover controlling wildlife damage to the pond and especially to the dam.  Van Slack, along with Noble SWCD technician Jim Mizik will explain pond siting, design, and dam construction.  And Clif Little from OSU extension will talk about controlling pond weeds.   Come enjoy a lovely evening outdoors and learn how you can better manage your dream pond.  Please call our office to reserve your spot at this event.  There is no charge, but we need to know how many to plan for

Nature Hike on the Great Guernsey Trail

Scheduled for Friday, June 8th at 6PM.  Meet at the Great Guernsey trailhead on Corduroy Rd. Led by Guernsey SWCD wildlife specialist Joe Lehman, and master gardener & naturalist Myron Dellinger. 
Enjoy the beautiful weather and get some exercise while learning about the wildlife and plant life along the trail. 
You can find the trailhead by following US 40 east of Cambridge, approx a mile past interstate 77.  (yes the bridge is open going eastbound)  Then turn right onto Corduroy Rd, and go about 1/4 mile to the parking lot, which is on the left.  Look for the white board fence.